On Sep 28, 9:47 pm, wrote:
"Steve" wrote:
Greetings all,

Pardon me if this has been discussed before but I am new to the group. Has
anyone had experience with what seems essentially to be a boat time-share
lease, i.e. sharing the use of a boat with several other people, but never
owning it? I was perusing boat ads the other day and ran across one such
outfit and it seemed like a good deal, which immediately made me suspicious.
Anyone here ever tried this type of thing?

Several, I think.

I've owned boats in partenrship, and it is not suited to my
personality. Part of it is the inevitable bickering over maintenance
exenses, which made me want to just smack them over the head... we did
not have any repair issues, thank goodness, that can be even thornier.
Just let me say: Buy a small boat you can afford rather than ruining a
friendship going in partners on a big one... or, if you must have a
big boat, go in partners with somebody you hate already.

Places like J-World or Club Nautique can also be a pretty good deal,
but part of what you pay for is professional management of the boat(s)
and expenses, and you have a limited range of options for use. Still,
it's much cheaper per-hour than owning one of the boats yourself....
unless you really have good maintenance skills and use the boat a lot.

Walking around almost any marina or sailing club, you'll see millions
of dollars sitting idle 99.99% of the time.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Doug:

Your last sentence says a lot. Not being used seems to be worse for a
boat than moderate use. So, how to address this problem? For a
cruising boat, I cannot think of a way but for racing boats a racing
club might be the way.